Mystras, the Medieval City and the Castle

A Complete Guide to the Churches, Palaces and the Castle. 

hatzidakis scrutinizes the first evidence for Mystras, before the Frankish Conquest of 1249; the city's acme, under the Franks (from 1249 to 1262), and subsequently, in the days of the Kantakouzenoi and the Palaiologoi; and again when, as capital of the Despotate of the Morea (from 1348 to 1460), Mystras became "the centre and very soul of the Peloponnese", a city in constant communication, politically and culturally, with the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople itself. And indeed the rich decoration of Mystras' churches - the Metropolis, the Aphendiko, the Peribleptos, or the Pantanassa, for instance - is a brilliant example of Constantinople's art at its greatest.